Electric sign structure



y 15, 1969 E. J. SCHULENBURG 3,455,046

ELECTRIC SIGN STRUCTURE Filed April 14, 1967 United States Patent 3,455,046 ELECTRIC SIGN STRUCTURE Edward J. Schulenburg, Danville, Ill., assignor to Time-0- Matic, Inc., Danville, Ill., a corporation of Illinois Filed Apr. 14, 1967, Ser. No. 631,082 Int. Cl. C091 13/00; E06b 7/16 US. or. 40-132 8 Claims ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE An electric sign structure including an outer housing having a compartment containing a bank of lamps, and hingeless door adapted to move between a vertical position covering the lamps and a horizontal position rearwardly into the housing. The upper margin of the door has a horizontal retaining member which serves as a seal against rain when" the door is in closed vertical position. The retaining member further serves to frictionally hold the door in place when the door is in the out of way horizontal position.

The present invention relates to electric sign structures of the type which includes lamp banks which are energized in various patterns for displaying time, temperature or other sign-forming indicia. The present invention deals particularly with the construction and arrangement of a louvred door which covers a horizontally facing opening in the lamp bank housing through which access to the lamp banks is obtained. The louvred door is desired to prevent the rays of the sun from striking the lamps and to permit the light of the lamps directed forwardly and downwardly to pass therethrough.

In accordance with one aspect of the invention, the louvred door is a hingeless door mounted for movement from a normal vertical position over the lamp bank access opening to a horizontal raised position above the lamp 7 bank access opening. The housing is provided with a horizontal slot above the lamp bank access opening into which slot the louvred door can be at least partially retracted When the door is released in its retracted position within the housing, the serviceman can use both hands to service the lamp banks. When the door is pulled from within the housing and dropped into a vertical position over the lamp bank access opening, the door is held in this position by a door-retaining means secured to the upper margin of the door and extending or located within the housing where it engages behind a lip or wall portion defining the upper margin of the door-receiving slot. The door-retaining means is preferably a resilient flexible member which forms a rain seal which sealingly engages the lip or wall portion referred to. Where the door involved is so long that only a relatively small portion of the door can be retracted into the housing so the center of gravity thereof remains outside of the housing, the door-retaining means includes means on the door, preferably the resilient flexible seal forming member referred to which frictionally engages a part of the housing when the "door is retracted within the housing.

The lamp bank housing preferably also contains the control equipment for controlling the lamp bank. A horizontally facing control equipment access opening is most advantageously formed in the lamp bank housing in a vertical wall thereof opposite the control equipment. A door which completely seals the control equipment access opening is provided which, like the screen door over the lamp bank access opening, is supported for movement between a normal vertical position and a raised horizontal position where the door is opposite a slot in the housing into which the door can be retracted. The door for the control equipment access opening can be retained within and sealingly supported from the housing in the same or 3,455,046 Patented July 15, 1969 similar way used in connection with the door covering the lamp bank access opening.

The above and other features of the present invention will become more apparent upon making reference to the specification, the claims and the drawings wherein:

FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing an electric sign structure with lamp banks and control equipment accessible through separate openings in the front wall of the sign housing, and doors for covering openings mounted in a raised retracted position Within the housing where the openings are uncovered;

FIG. 2 has an enlarged sectional view through the upper portion of the electric sign structure shown in FIG. 1, taken, substantially along the section line 22 therein;

FIG. 3 is an enlarged sectional view of the bottom portion of the electric sign structure shown in FIG. 1, taken substantially along the section line 33 therein;

4 is a further enlarged view of a portion of the electric sign structure shown in FIG. 2, where the door shown therein is dropped into its normal vertical position; and

FIG. 5 is a further enlarged view of a portion of the electric sign structure shown in FIG. 3, where the door shown therein is moved into its normal closed vertical position.

Referring now to the drawings, an electric sign structure 1 is there shown comprising a rectangular housing 2 having front and rear vertical walls 4 and 5, top and bottom walls 7 and 8, and side walls 10 and 11. The housing 2 further has interior partition walls like vertically spaced horizontal partition walls 14 and 15, horizontally spaced end partitioned walls 16, and rear partition walls 18 which form a watertight, lamp bank compartment 19.

The front wall 4 of the housing 2 is provided with a lamp bank access opening 21 behind which various lamp banks of lamps 24 are mounted within the lamp bank compartment 19. The lamps 24 are mounted in sockets 26 on the rear partition wall .18 which sockets have terminals 28 accessible at the rear of the partitioned panel 18 within a rear compartment 30. The rear housing wall 5 may be removably mounted in any suitable way to gain access to the terminals 28. The rear compartment 30 as illustrated communicates at the top thereof with an upper compartment 32 which includes a rearwardly and downwardly inclining guide wall 34. The upper compartment 32 also communicates at the bottom thereof with a rear compartment 40 which contains control equipment like 42 such as relays, amplifiers and the like, for the banks of lamps 24. The control equipment 42 is accessible behind an access opening 44 formed at the bottom of the front wall 4 of the housing 2.

In accordance with the most preferred form of the present invention, the lamp bank access opening 21 and the control equipment access opening 44 are covered by separate doors 50 and 52, respectively. The door 52 may be an imperforate panel of metal or the like which is adapted completely to seal over the opening 44. The door 50 is most advantageously a screen door having a series of vertically spaced, downwardly and forwardly inclining slats or louvres 53 which, when the door 50 is covering the opening 21, shields the lamps 24 from sunlight and permits the passage therethrough of the light from the lamps directed downwardly and forwardly.

For convenience in servicing and economy of fabrication, the doors 50 and 52 are designed in a manner now to be described wherein the doors do not have hinges and are not attached to any part of the housing. The doors are mounted for movement between the vertical closed position shown in FIGS. 4 and 5 to the raised horizontally extending positions shown in FIGS. 1 through 3 where the doors are retracted within the housing 2 in a self-supporting position. To this end, the front wall 4 of the housing 2 is provided with a horizontal door-receiving slot 53 immediately above the lamp bank access opening 21 and a horizontal door-receiving slot 55 immediately above the control equipment access opening 54. The upper slot 53 opens onto an upper compartment 32 in the housing 2 and the bottom slot 55 opens upon the bottom portion of the lamp bank compartment 19. The doors 50 and 52 in their raised positions respectively extend into the slots 53 and 55.

In the illustrated embodiment of the invention, the length of the louvred door 50 is much greater than the depth of the upper compartment 32 behind the slot 53, so the center of gravity of the door remains outside the housing 2 when the door is retracted to the greatest degree possible within the housing. Means are provided for retaining the door 50 in both its horizontal retracted raised position and its vertical lowered position comprising most advantageously a horizontal, flexible, resilient strip 58 secured to the inner surface of the upper portion of the door 50. The horizontal, flexible, resilient strip 58 has an outer edge portion 60 positioned beyond the end of the door 50 which edge portion frictionally engages the guide wall 34 when the door is retracted within the housing 50 to hold the door within the housing. As will appear, the resilient strip 58 also acts as a rain seal for the lamp bank access opening 21. The horizontal resilient strip has a base portion 58a extending generally parallel to and secured to the rear sides of the door 50, and an outer portion 58]) which, in its unstressed state, inclines outwardly of the base portion 58a as shown in FIG. 2. The longitudinal edge of the outer portion 58b is the edge portion 60 previously referred to which frictionally engages the guide wall 34 to hold the door 50 in place within the housing 2.

The door 50 is returned to its normal vertical position over the lamp bank access opening 21 by pulling the door 50 forwardly until the end of the door passes the slot 53 and then dropping the door 50. When the door 50 is in a lowered vertical position completely covering the opening 21, an extension 61 on the door 50 rests on the lower defining wall portion 62 of the slot 53. The extension 61 may be formed by the flanges of a horizontal channel strip 59 secured to the door by the same screws 64 which secure the horizontal resilient strip 58 to the door. The

inclined outer portion 58b of the horizontal resilient strip 58 projects inwardly and upwardly through the slot 53 and is reversely flexed and presses against the rearwardly facing surface 63 of the portion of the front wall 4 above the slot 53 which forms a lip thereat, as shown in FIG. 4. The engagement of the outer inclined strip portion 58b against the surface 63 cooperates with the extension 61 to hold the door in place over the opening 21 and provides a rain seal over the slot 53.

Although the means for retaining the lowered door 52 covering over the control equipment access opening 44 may be the same as that utilized for the door, a somewhat different means is illustrated in FIGS. 3 and 5 because the door 52 is so short that it can be substantially fully retracted within the housing 2 where the center of gravity of the door 52 is within the housing. Thus, when the door 52 is raised into alignment with the lower slot and pushed within the housing, the weight of the door will retain the same within the housing 2. At the normally upper end of the door 52 there is provided a transverse flange 70 which, when the door 52 is retracted within the housing 2, rests upon the aforementioned lower partition wall 15 at the bottom portion of the lamp bank compartment 19. There is secured on the outer surface of the flange 70 a horizontal tubular compressible sealing member 72 made of rubber or similar material. When the door 52 is pulled through the slot 55 and dropped into its normal closed position, the inner surface of the flange 70 will rest upon the bottom edge of the slot 55. The diameter of the sealing member 72 is such that it will not pass through the slot 55 and will be compressed against the upper defining wall of the slot 55 and be flattened against a part of the rear surface of the front wall 4, as shown in FIG. 5, to seal the compartment 40 from entry of rain. As illustrated, a suitable lock-forming projection 72 may be provided on the door 52 for engaging the lip 79 at the bottom of the opening 44 so that the door can be securely locked in place on the housing.

It should be understood that numerous modificatio may be made in the most preferred form of the invention described above without deviating from the broader aspects thereof.

I claim:

1. In an electric sign structure including an outer housing having a vertical front wall with a horizontally facing opening therein behind which is located a compartment containing a banks of lamps to be energized, access to the lamps for removing and otherwise servicing the same being through said opening, the improvement comprising: a hingeless screen door over said opening having louvres for shading the lamps in said compartment from the rays of the sun and permitting light from the lamps directed forwardly and downwardly to pass through the screen door; said housing front wall having a horizontal doorreceiving slot above said opening therein; said screen door being pivotable from a normal vertical position where it covers said opening into a raised horizontal position above said opening where the door is in alignment with said slot; the screen door in said raised horizontal position being at least partially retractable within said housing through said slot; and said screen door having door-retaining means connected along the upper margin thereof which means has a portion which extends into the interior of said housing through said slot when the door is in said vertical position over said housing opening to engage with the housing walls at and near the perimeter of the slot for holding the door in position over the opening; and said door and door-retaining means being bodily movable together rearwardly in said housing when the door is retracted rearwardly into said slot, and, when so retracted in said slot and released, remaining in position within said housing.

2. The electric sign structure of claim 1 wherein said door retaining means at the upper margin of the door includes a flexible, resilient member which sealingly engages with the upper defining wall portion of said slot when the door is in said vertical position over said front wall opening to prevent entry of rain into the slot.

3. The electric sign structure of claim 1 wherein said door retaining means comprises a horizontal strip of material which is secured to the upper margin of the door, said horizontal strip of material having an outer projecting portion which inclines upwardly and rearwardly through said housing slot and is compressed against the rear surface of said front wall of the housing above said slot.

4. The electric sign structure of claim 1 wherein said door is of such a height that it can be retracted only a small extent within the housing so the center of gravity of the door remains outside of the housing, and said housing includes holding means which engages with said door-retaining means when the door is retracted to the greatest extent possible within the housing and holds the door in said retracted position within said housing.

5. The electric sign structure of claim 4 wherein said holding means in said housing which engages the doorretaining means of said door holds the door in place only by virtue of the friction therebetrween.

6. The electric sign structure of claim 1 wherein said door retaining means connected to the upper margin of the door includes a horizontal flexible resilient strip of material which has a base portion secured to the door and an outer projecting portion which, when unstressed, inclines upwardly and outwardly beyond the upper margin of the door when said door is in said vertical position over said housing opening, said outer projecting portion of the resilient strip of material then being reversely flexed where it extends upwardly and inwardly of the upper margin of the door and along the inner surface of said front housing wall above said slot.

7. The electric sign structure of claim 5 wherein said door-retaining means connected to the upper margin of the door includes a horizontal flexible resilient strip of material which has a base portion secured to the door and an outer projecting portion which, when unstressed, inclines upwardly and outwardly beyond the upper margin of the door when said door is in said vertical position over said housing opening, said outer projecting portion of the resilient strip of material then being reversely flexed where it extends upwardly and inwardly of the upper margin of the door and along the inner surface of said front housing wall above said slot, and said holding means comprises a wall in said housing which is frictionally engaged by said outer projecting portion of said resilient strip of material.

8. The electric sign structure of claim 1 wherein said housing further includes a second compartment for housing control equipment which controls the energization of said banks of lamps; the housing having a second horizontally facing opening behind which said control equipment is located and through which opening access to said control equipment may be obtained; said housing having a second door over the latter opening to seal the same against entry of rain; said housing having a second horizontal door-receiving slot above the latter opening; the second door having connected along the upper margin thereof a seal-forming and door-retaining member which,

when the second door covers the latter opening, sealingly engages the upper defining wall portion of said slot; said second door being pivotable from said vertical position to a horizontal raised position at the elevation of said second slot where the door is slidable rearwardly through said second slot into a retracted position within said housing; and said housing having a door-receiving space behind said second slot which permits the door to be pushed into said housing a distance where the center of gravity of the door is within the housing so that the door remains in place in said retracted position, and a door resting surface in said housing upon which the second door rests when retracted within said housing.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,207,595 12/1916 Miller 312--109 1,963,089 6/1934 Henderson 312296 3,142,038 7/ 1964 Jackson. 3,347,305 10/ 1967 Urbanick 201 X FOREIGN PATENTS 463,092 12/ 1913 France.

EUGENE R. CAPOZIO, Primary Examiner RICHARD CARTER, Assistant Examiner US. Cl. X.R. 

